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The Good Oil: Roadblock in restoring the future

5:30 AM Saturday Dec 1, 2012

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Plans to restore the actual Back to the Future movie's DeLorean DMC-12 have run into a time warp. Seems that finding original parts or creating all new ones for a fictional time machine isn't as easy as it first seemed.

A team has completely disassembled Doc Brown's DeLorean from the original movie, starring Michael J. Fox, for a museum-quality restoration. This includes redoing the interior and all the electronics including the critical flux capacitor, along with a complete exterior makeover.

One of the remade pieces is the metal receptacle in which plutonium was placed to get the required 1.21 ''jiggawatts'' of power to make time travel possible.

`Oh yes, I have a Falcon ...'

Will Bentley redesign its monstrous EXP 9 F SUV concept? Will it be a big redesign or just a tweak? Will it get a name change?

The world's auto media has been abuzz with speculation, but does anyone really care? Especially given that this SUV, if built, will be seriously expensive and out of the reach of all but the super-rich.

However, it seems the SUV is getting a complete redesign and the production version will have a new name, Falcon.

Good Oil wonders if the Bentley bosses are aware of a car made by Ford in Australia or, if they do, whether they are even interested?

Shelby to show it's still on track

The death, in May, of American performance-car legend Carroll Shelby sparked peculation about whether his performance brand, Shelby American, would close.

Now, business partner John Luft has told US media that Shelby wanted the company to be kept alive and new products will be rolled out for next month's North American International Auto Show plus the Chicago and New York shows.

Just what the Las Vegas-based company will show is secret, but the wise money suggests wringing more power from the Ford EcoBoost family of engines will be high on the agenda. Shelby has already taken advantage of forced induction and a smaller engine with the supercharged V6 in its entry- level Mustang-based Shelby GTS.

Want to own a car that no thief wants to steal? In America, that would be a Toyota Prius hybrid. Insurance figures show that 2008-2012 Prius models have a theft rate of one in 606 vehicles compared to one in 78 for all models on the road. California holds the honour of taking the lion's share of those thefts. Florida was next, followed by New York, Washington and then Texas.

New Zealand figures weren't immediately available.

Lemmy at it _ Motorhead rocks wine biz

Billed as the ''loudest wine on the planet'', Motorhead shiraz is rocking store shelves in Australia.

After nearly four decades of their deafening brand of bludgeon-rock, British band Motorhead have traded amplifiers for trampling grapes, and have done okay.

Well, apart from being banned in Iceland because bureaucrats thought that the name Motorhead was a nod to amphetamine abuse.

The shiraz comes from the Mt Benson region in South Australia and the band recommends drinking it with grilled lamb chops with garlic and rosemary. However, it comes with a warning from Lemmy Kilmister, Motorhead's bourbon-loving bassist and founder: ''My advice is approach it with caution. I mean, wine is deceptive, anything can happen.''

The distributor says that, ''once people get into the wine they'll soon realise that this is a serious wine that demands your attention''.

We are the world

*India's bureaucracy records deaths particularly ineptly, according to the BBC, to the advantage of men seeking an alternative to divorce. They find it easier to swear out a death certificate on one wife so they can marry another. The first wife then faces years of campaigning to convince officials she is not dead.

*Sinus-suffering American Isaak Lasson, 6, of Salt Lake City has been diagnosed as having accidentally stuck a Lego piece up his nose three years ago. And Hector Flores Jr, 7, of New York City, was found to have swallowed the whistle mechanism of a plastic duck, causing him to tweet when he laughed.

*A distraught 33-year-old man in Iowa, US, chose drastic means to reconcile with his ex-wife. He twice arranged to have himself shot to win her sympathy. The first hitman got him in the leg, but the ex ignored him. The second attempt, involving two shooters, also failed.

Now, he's serving 10 years in jail because it is illegal in Iowa to have yourself shot.

Number crunching

213 MILLIONCars junked in America each year.

500 THOUSANDCars junked in China last year.

2 MILLIONCars scrapped in the UK per year.

100 THOUSANDApproximate number of cars scrapped annually in New Zealand.